"We were all kids then", was how a former bassoonist in the New York
Philharmonic had put it when I talked to him after Martin Smith’s
moving memorial service in the Heinz Hall Grand Lobby last Monday.
They had played together in the NYP twenty-five years ago, and he had
flown in to Pittsburgh just to pay his final respects to Martin.
Martin’s former colleague reminded me that Martin was acting principal
horn in the NYP the year Bernstein took the orchestra to Japan. Upon
their return, Lenny and the orchestra recorded the Shostokovitch Fifth
Symphony. You can hear Martin in the solo horn passages on that
recording. To think we were blessed with Martin’s music making in the
PSO for twenty-five years despite the fact that he was taken away from
us much too soon. We miss you and won’t forget you, Martin.